Fact Check On Fact Check Of Dana Loesch’s New Book ‘Hands Off My Gun’

[keno]

Dana Loesch’s new book “Hands Off My Gun” went on sale yesterday, and naturally the liberal media immediately want it quashed and destroyed. Loesch is a favorite target for these attack groups, not least because she is such a fierce advocate for gun rights and protecting the constitutional freedoms guaranteed to Americans.

One such outlet, Media Matters for America, posted a supposed fact check of some of the Founding Fathers quotes that are included in the book. Their claim is that Dana “botches” the quotes, because as you know, girls are stupid. But the assertion requires a little more perusal, if for nothing more than satisfaction of curiosity.

Here is how the article begins. And remember, “Botches” is in the title of the post.
 
Conservative commentator Dana Loesch’s new book Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America includes spurious quotes from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers, despite the fact that it purports to teach readers about “the history of the Second Amendment.”
 
Spurious, they say. Botched, they say. That is quite the pair of charges. I say “pair” because one implies malicious intent, while the other implies ignorance or stupidity. At Media Matters, they don’t like to leave any pejorative phrase unturned.
Here is an example of the “spurious” and/or “botched” quote from George Washington.
“A free people ought to be armed.” – George Washington
 
And the quote as posted by Media Matters:

 “A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.”
MMFA reasons that Washington was advocating merely for an armed militia, not for the free people to be armed. Presumably, this is because the words discipline and uniform appear, which everyone knows are very militia-y things to say. They rely on a PBS website posting of a transcript, and a Politifact expert who helped them “translate that into 21st-century-ese.”

Dana Loesch’s book, which “went through two legal reads” for accuracy, sources the quote to Buckeye Firearms, where their page of Founding Fathers’ quotes included the version in Loesch’s book.


A third version also appears online. It, like the one MMFA used, is from a media transcription, albeit a teensy bit more contemporary than PBS. It’s from the newspaper Massachusetts Spy, which article was published on January 21, 1790. It reads: “A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined. And to be independent of others.” The contemporary Spy reports that Washington’s context was strengthening America to be “self-sufficient domestically.”


It’s available from the Archiving Early America website, which was founded by archivist for the Keigwin and Mathews Collection of 18th century historical documents of early America Don Vitale, former senior lecturer on journalism at USC.

Botched, they say. Spurious, they proclaim. Poppycock, says reasoning.

The analysis of the language is apparently subjective, as two different experts offer two different explanations. As proof that Washington didn’t believe in the rights of citizens to own guns, MMFA has offered nothing at all. Loesch’s quote withstands scrutiny.
Another quote MMFA says was similarly wrong is from Thomas Jefferson.
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” — Thomas Jefferson (quoting eighteenth-century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)
 
But of course, after they present Loesch’s version, they offer no other. Because there is no other. That’s just the quote. That he wrote. With his fingers.

Botched, they say. Spurious, they claim. Accurate, they mean.

They claim “Loesch presents this quote as if Jefferson were quoting Beccaria approvingly, but that is not necessarily the case.” WHOA! Not necessarily what he meant? Well call the Massachusetts Spy! We have a breaking story here! Headine “Nuh-uh, probably!”

Speaking of quoting someone incorrectly, here is MMFA’s reasoning.
 
Jefferson copied the Beccaria quote in Italian into his legal commonplace book, a “journal or notebook in which a student, reader, or writer compiles quotations, poems, letters, and information, along with the compiler’s notes and reactions.” Jefferson notated the copied passage with the words, “False idee di utilità,” which is a summation of the idea contained in the quotation and is not evidence of what “our Constitution’s drafters intended when they drafted and approved the Second Amendment.”
 
In fact, Jefferson’s notation doesn’t mean what MMFA says it does at all. Jefferson notes the passage with the phrase “False idee di utilità” in his commonplace book. The passage quoted and marked with that notation, which means “false ideas of utility”, includes examples of such false ideas.


Laws that are examples of a false idea of utility “are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent.” Well gosh, what can that mean? Luckily, it goes on:

“Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance?”

Another example of a false idea of utility was legislators “who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned.” Does that sound like something Thomas Jefferson would do? Sacrifice liberty in pursuit of safety? His notation was blatantly drawing attention to these transgressions against liberty as being “false ideas,” and that includes the false idea that disarming the law-abiding citizens serves any useful purpose. To put it another way, Media Matters is dead wrong, both in their understanding of the quote, and their understanding of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s explanation of the quote.

In short, they have misquoted those correcting a common misattribution of a quote which was correctly quoted and attributed by “Hands Off My Gun”. Now that is a dandy of a trick.
continued here:


http://www.redstate.com/2014/10/22/fact-check-fact-check-dana-loeschs-hot-new-book-hands-gun/

[hoosier_daddy]

there were no assault weapons in the late 1700's.  there were very few police forces outside of big cities.  outside the big cities, there were many good reasons to go around armed, bears being one damn good reason.  i don't believe anybody thinks a person has the right to use a gun to protect himself, his home and family.  but not an assault weapon or a grenade launcher.  and even then after you pass a background check and a waiting period.  so what are you crybabies bitching about?

[a777pilot]

The citizens of this nation, by right of our Constitution, ought have an absolute right to purchase any weapon that a State or local police department have the right to use in the performance of their duties.

In the early days of our country, there were assault weapons, ho-da.  Look it up.

[hoosier_daddy]

i don't give a fuck.  they also owned slaves and didn't allow women to vote.  what is it with you guys thinking people born 250 fucking years ago were perfect?  and what was the assault weapon of that time, idiot- A FUCKING MUSKET.  what an idiot you are.  try to fucking think, if you can.  the second amendment says in order to maintain a well-regulated militia...are you clowns in a well-regulated militia?  cities back in those days and after HAD BANS AGAINST GUNS IN PUBLIC. we always have had them.  that is all anybody is saying, except for bans on incredibly lethal assault weapons that are just too fucking dangerous to be in the hands of loons like the sandy hook killer and others.  why are you clowns trying to be so stupid about this?


everyone believes in limiting the rights of american citizens to own and bear ARMS...arms are all military weapons.  from nukes to grenade launchers to shoulder fired ground to air missiles.  are you really saying you would allow any citizen to possess these even more dangerous forms of military style weapons just because our forefathers 250 years ago had no idea this kind of shit was possible, they were dealing with single shot cannons and single shot muskets?

why do you let yourself be so stupid?

[keno]

i don't give a fuck.


That's hoser. When asked if his stupidity was because of ignorance or apathy, he replied, "I don't know, and I don't care".

If you don't like the second amendment, get it changed, instead of pretending that it doesn't apply in these times. How should we limit the right to free speech?

[sweetwater5s9]

The anti-gun idiots will never get it nor do they care.   Why do you think Lenin called these people useful idiots?  If you have never heard the term “useful idiot” it was the attitude held by Vladimir Lenin towards the peasants that supported him.   We have many of his idiots on the left in America today.

[hoosier_daddy]

we don't need to change it.  unless you are in a well-regulated militia the second amendment does not apply to you.  you boys are confusing facts with right wing bullshit.  does the constitution guarantee you can own a hammer or a spatula?  but you can, right?  same thing with guns.  you don't need the constitution to buy a gun to protect your house and home or to hunt for food and game.  whoever said you did?  all the constitution said was the right to own and BEAR ARMS, WHICH MEANS ALL MANNER OF WEAPONS, NO EXCEPTIONS, WAS RESERVED FOR THOSE IN A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA.  do you really think your right to own a shoulder fired ground to air missile is a constitutional right?  just how fucking stupid are you?

WE DO LIMIT THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH!!  YOU CANNOT YELL FIRE IN A CROWDED THEATRE, FOR EXAMPLE.  you can be sued for libel and slander.  you can be arrested for offering a judge a thousand dollars to let you off, even if you never give it to him.  you can be kicked out of any public place for swearing out loud or threatening to kill people or whatever.  no rights guaranteed by the constitution are total and immune to any consequences.

[keno]

All of your bullshit rhetoric aside, hosemouth, address the gist of the post. It's about you Bolsheviks lying.

[a777pilot]

According to our first President, we are all part of the militia.  The militia is made up of all able body citizens.

Why should police have access to more and better weapons then the citizens they work for?

Yes, there were semi-automatic weapons in the late 1700's.  I guess they would be the so called "assault weapon" of its day.


p.s.,  Just what the hell is an assault weapon anyway?

[HK91-762mm]

p.s.,  Just what the hell is an assault weapon anyway?

Tell Hozer a Farking BBgun can be an assault weapon if I wack him Upside the head with the butt end !!

[hoosier_daddy]

According to our first President, we are all part of the militia.  The militia is made up of all able body citizens.

Why should police have access to more and better weapons then the citizens they work for?

Yes, there were semi-automatic weapons in the late 1700's.  I guess they would be the so called "assault weapon" of its day.


p.s.,  Just what the hell is an assault weapon anyway?

our first president owned about 1000 slaves, too, and used leeches to treat illness.  and back then, all weapons WERE THE SAME!!  MUSKETS!!  GET IT?

an assault weapon is any weapon that can fire 30 rounds in under 10 seconds, be quickly reloaded with a high capacity clip, and fire 30 more rounds in under 10 seconds, and so on, until the shooter runs out of high capacity clips or gets shot by police responding to the latest mass shooting.  get it? 

[sweetwater5s9]

The militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves, ... all men capable of bearing arms;..." — "Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic", 1788 (either Richard Henry Lee or Melancton Smith).

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People." — Tench Coxe, 1788.

The following are links to each state, each of which will include links to locally-maintained constitutional militia Web sites.

Alabama	Hawaii	Massachusetts	New Mexico	South Dakota
Alaska	Idaho	Michigan	New York	Tennessee
Arizona	Illinois	Minnesota	North Carolina	Texas
Arkansas	Indiana	Mississippi	North Dakota	Utah
California	Iowa	Missouri	Ohio	Vermont
Colorado	Kansas	Montana	Oklahoma	Virginia
Connecticut	Kentucky	Nebraska	Oregon	Washington
Delaware	Louisiana	Nevada	Pennsylvania	West Virginia
Florida	Maine	New Hampshire	Rhode Island	Wisconsin
Georgia	Maryland	New Jersey	South Carolina	Wyoming

http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_us.htm